Apr 27, 2023 - Sale 2634

Sale 2634 - Lot 86

Price Realized: $ 18,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 15,000 - $ 25,000
ANSEL ADAMS (1902-1984)
Grand Prismatic Spring, Midway Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Silver print, the image measuring 14x19 1/4 inches (35.6x48.9 cm.), flush mounted. 1941; printed before 1955

Provenance: Carl Blomgren Fine Books, Petaluma, California

This print was included in the landmark 1955 Sierra Club exhibition titled This is the American Earth held at their LeConte Lodge in Yosemite National Park. The show, which Adams created with Nancy Newhall and which represented 32 photographers, was intended to advocate for the conservation and expansion of the national park system, a mission closely aligned with Adams' own. The show included panels with mounted photographs; Grand Prismatic Spring, Midway Geyser Basin was shown on panel 3. This exhibition and the subsequent 1960 book with text by Nancy Newhall and eighty-five photographs—over half of which were by Ansel Adams—subsequently launched the Sierra Club's Exhibit Format Series, which brought environmental consciousness to the foreground of American politics.

"This Is The American Earth compels us to ask what is the value of solitude, the cost of freedom, the legacy of our ingenuity—and the peril of our unwavering march from nature."—Foreword, This is the American Earth